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1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to expert designer systems, and more particularly to an intelligent business rules module for expert designer systems in the utility industry.
2. Description of the Related Art
Expert designer systems allow a user to design a physical facility on the computer and to analyze the resulting computerized model of the facility to enhance or change the design. As described herein, a facility is made up of features which represent physical objects such as transformers and telephone poles. A feature may be a compound feature containing other features as components; for example, a switchbox contains multiple switches and cutouts, each switch and cutout itself being a feature. A facility is designed for a particular work location, defined by physical boundaries of the land.
Expert designer systems automate developing, planning, modeling, and managing large facilities. A design is viewed as a work location having a set of features. A designer working with the design requests actions on features, such as moving a feature within the design. While the action may be performed at the component level rather than at the feature level, conceptually the action may be envisioned as operating at the feature level.
In the utility industry, expert designer systems are used to manage, for example, gas distribution utility systems and electric utility distribution systems. Expert designer systems often access and make use of geographic information systems (GIS) information. Geographic information systems provide spatial information describing existing land and facilities to be incorporated into proposed designs. For example, an expert designer system may be used to design facilities in coordination with a variety of sources of geographic information, such as Automated Mapping and Facilities Management (AM/FM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), and related information technologies for utilities, government agencies, and other organizations concerned with land records and facilities management. These geographic information sources will be referred to collectively herein as xe2x80x9cgeographic information systems,xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cGISs.xe2x80x9d
It is known to provide an expert designer system for use with geographic information systems. One example of such a system is available from Cook-Hurlbert, Inc. under the trade designation CH-Expert Designer, v. 2.0. FIG. 1, labeled prior art, shows a block diagram of such an expert designer system for use with geographic information systems. The expert designer system of FIG. 1 includes an expert designer 102 and an expert designer database 108. Expert designer 102 is coupled to a GIS core 104. The GIS core 104 is coupled to a GIS database 106. In operation, a user accesses the expert designer system 102, which interacts with the GIS core 104 to obtain information from the GIS database 106.
The expert designer 102 also integrates GIS with work management applications (not shown), offering a standard, cost-effective way to close the loop between design and mapping. Expert designer 102 allows GIS-based spatial information describing existing land and facilities to be incorporated into proposed designs.
Business rules of an expert designer system express allowed and required connectivity, the propagation of attributes such as phase and voltage, and constraints on attribute values for components of a design. Business rules provide intelligence about how GIS-based spatial information affects the design, how features of the design may be connected, relationships that are required and/or allowed between features of the design, and other similar information.
Most expert designer systems that use business rules are written specifically for a particular GIS and data model for a design. Furthermore, many systems using business rules use an inference engine to apply the business rules, which may use forward- and/or backward-chaining through the business rules to analyze the design. Because of the need to forward- and/or backward-chain through the business rules, inference engines often operate too slowly to be used in dynamically evaluating a design as changes are being made.
The CH-Expert Designer 2.0 system also includes a quality analysis tool that allows companies to analyze a design and verify connectivity of features, placement, and attribute values in a network or an entire GIS. The quality analysis tool allows users to verify that the data meet very high quality standards and to identify recurring problems. However, most quality analysis tools operate after a design is built using an inference engine and do not dynamically evaluate each change to the design as the change is being made.
To more effectively assist designers with preparing designs, a business rules module is desirable that dynamically evaluates additions, changes, and removals from the design as they are being performed. Placement into a design is highly time-sensitive, and the quality analysis tool should operate without noticeable delays to the designer using the expert designer system. To be the most useful, the business rules module should operate independently of the data model for the design so that it can be used with different types of designs and a variety of GIS systems.
In accordance with the present invention, an intelligent business rules module and method for processing an action to be performed on a design is presented.
In at least one embodiment of the invention, the action to be performed includes adding a feature to the design; changing a value of an attribute of a feature of the design; removing a feature from the design; and moving a feature from an old work location in the design to a new work location in the design.
In at least one embodiment, the intelligent business rules module includes instructions for determining a type of the action, determining the feature type of the feature that is the subject of the action, and determining whether a business rule exists for performing the action type on the feature type. If a business rule exists, the business rules module determines whether performing the action on the feature will satisfy the business rule. If performing the action will satisfy the business rule, the intelligent business rules module approves the action to be performed on the design. If performing the action will not satisfy the business rule, the business rules module does not approve the action to be performed.
In one embodiment, the intelligent business rules module includes at least one business rule and a business rules core. The business rules core receives the request for the action, dynamically and immediately evaluates the action prior to the performance of the action, approves the action, and specifies at least one activity to be performed in response to the request.
In another embodiment, the intelligent business rules module may be included as part of an expert designer system. The expert designer system includes an expert designer system core which includes the intelligent business rules module. If the intelligent business rules module approves the action to be performed on the design, the expert designer system core performs the action on the design.
In yet another embodiment, the expert designer system incorporating the business rules module may also include a virtual plug-in interface that enables the expert designer system to seamlessly integrate with multiple types of database systems, including geographic information systems and work management systems.
The foregoing is a summary and thus contains, by necessity, simplifications, generalizations and omissions of detail; consequently, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other aspects, inventive features, and advantages of the present invention, as defined solely by the claims, will become apparent in the non-limiting detailed description set forth below.